I Borgia (The Borgias: The Hidden History), G. J. Meyer

For the most part though, Meyer's writing is fluid and provides a very easy read. As I was reading, it really didn't feel like a non fiction book to me. But then, I have read much heavier tomes than this. Meyers writing is so fluid that at times it really did read like a novel to me, but at the same time I could really see the amount of research that he did into his work. His writing style really did make the story of the Borgia family - from Alonso De Borja right up until the fantastic Saint Francis Borgia - utterly accessible. Easy reading, and doesn't overload the reader with too much politics - although given the era, politics is really a given.

Though the years ahead would be heavy with dark events, and though she was quite human enough to be changed by the misfortunes that befell her, Lucrezia would mature and improve rather than harden with the years. If by the end of her life not a great deal would remain of the fun-loving child-bride she had been when first married, neither would she bear the slightest resemblance to the monstrous Lucrezia of legend.

Misrule and instability thus formed the dark underside of the Italian Renaissance, with almost every regime recurrently under threat from internal as well as external enemies. It was far from uncommon, and at times was almost commonplace, for the lords of Italy’s cities to be bloodily overthrown—often by their own kinsmen, with brother killing brother either to gain or to retain power. Men who had become rulers through violence could find little grounds for complaint, and often nowhere to appeal, when their turn came to be violently overthrown. Might made right: this became a fact of life and was the one utterly inglorious element in Renaissance Italy’s otherwise magnificent heritage. Betrayal and murder became endemic even at the most exalted levels of society, even within the greatest families. This was the world in which the Borjas of Valencia had to learn to make their way.